


Bike Ride

by PastSelf22



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Classic Undertale, Flowey Undertale, Flowey the Flower - Freeform, Gen, Pacifist Ending, Papyrus - Freeform, The Great Papyrus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-22
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-28 04:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30133881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastSelf22/pseuds/PastSelf22
Summary: It's Christmas morning and Flowey gets a surprise visit - set after the Pacifist Ending. Based off of the Countdown Dialogue Stories by Toby Fox. Spiritual successor to Cold Hands.
Kudos: 1





	Bike Ride

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I meant to have this done by Christmas but I got blocked. Anyway, here it is now! It's meant to be in the same vein as my other story, Cold Hands, but the vibe is totally different. I hope you like it anyway! Enjoy!

**Bike Ride**

Flowey woke to someone calling his name. He raised his petaled head groggily and was greeted by the foggy gray interior of the pricklebush he had come to call his home. A pricklebush – to be precise – inside the garden dedicated to the six humans whose souls had freed monsterkind from the Underground, and which was carefully tended by Asgore, the monsters’ ex-king. The bush was a secure location for one such as Flowey, because besides its sharp thorns it was also walled off by a thick hedge to keep careless children from wandering too close. Nowadays the shrub was also covered by a thick blanket of snow which kept the golden flower even further from sight.

Flowey shook his head to free himself from lingering sleep. He wouldn’t get any more of that now. Technically, he didn’t even NEED sleep – being a flower and all that – but old habits died hard. Plus, it spent time. He could spend time in other ways, of course, but ever since the INCIDENT… he had tried very hard not to do anything he would later regret.

_I can’t reset anymore_ , he had needed to remind himself on multiple occasions. _I need to be careful. Every move is set in stone. If I make one wrong decision…_

But it had been so hard, SO HARD to quench the boredom that had risen sometimes. That was why he had left the Underground in the first place. With most of the inhabitants gone – and all of the interesting ones – he had found his section of the world to be discouragingly small. So he had ventured out. He had felt the wind on his petals and the sun on his stem. The smell of the nearby sea and the sound of children’s laughter ringing through the air. The sight of humans and monsters mingling for the first time in a long while.

He had held himself back. Flowey was only too aware how his own curiosity could breed horrendous mistakes, and although once upon a time he had the ability to reverse those mistakes, that power had been lost as soon as a certain human had fallen into the Underground.

Frisk. Flowey at first thought that their voice had been the one that had shaken him awake. But no. It soon became cuttingly aware who was calling for him. Even as he thought it, another shout broke through the air. Flowey groaned, popping underneath the ground and reappearing outside the hedge he slept in. Normally where he now sat would be a flower garden, but in the dead of winter all that was growing now were snow poffs. Snow poffs and dead twigs. Flowey surveyed the deceased remains of his fellow flowers without sympathy, shaking snow from his petals and looking up at the darkened sky from which a few scant flakes were falling

“AH, FLOWERY! HERE YOU ARE!!!”

Flowey glowered at the swiftly approaching figure. “Geez, Papyrus,” he groaned. “It’s not even morning yet. Couldn’t you have waited until the sun was up?”

Papyrus had always called him Flowery in timelines when Flowey had not disclosed his name. Flowey never corrected him. After all, it was close enough, and Flowey had made up his own name anyway, so why not be Flowery for a while?

The eccentrically dressed skeleton grinned widely, skidding to a halt in front of the bright yellow flower – a spot of gold on the white-sheeted ground. Today, Flowey noted, he was wearing a bright red, puffy jacket unzipped to display a v-neck crop top with the numbers 08 written in a bold font. For pants he wore skin tight – or rather, bone tight – biking shorts. Along with his typical red mittens on his hands, scarf around his neck, and purple earmuffs over his non-existent ears, he cut a very striking figure against the snow. “BUT IT IS MORNING, MY FRIEND!!! SEE!?!” He whipped out his phone and shoved it in Flowey’s face, pointing victoriously to the clock in the upper right-hand corner. “FOUR O’ CLOCK A.M.! A.M. STANDS FOR ‘ABSOLUTELY MORNING’!!!”

Flowey clicked his tongue. “Whatever you say, Papyrus.”

When he had first exited the mountain, Flowey told himself that he wouldn’t go looking for them. It was better that way. But in a growing settlement, you were bound to run into somebody you recognized sooner or later. Even though he hadn’t necessarily been looking, he found Frisk in the marketplace, holding tightly onto Toriel’s hand. They seemed happy. Both of them did. And then he found out where they lived. Not on purpose or anything. It just happened. And then he found out where all of them lived. And what their daily commutes were. Before he knew what was happening, he watched them every day.

He had tried to hide himself from them. All of them. Especially Frisk. After what they had been through together… after what Frisk had seen of him… he couldn’t bear their eyes upon him. And the rest of them? What would they think of his actions? How would they treat him?

Deep in his soulless stem he worked it out. He knew how they would treat him. With distrust and spite and – in one bony person’s case – downright malice. But if Frisk talked to them, convinced them that he had changed, maybe they would accept him. Maybe they would let their guard down.

And there would be their fatal mistake. Because with their guards down, he could do anything he wanted! He could watch their trust become their foils as he stabbed them in the back – how amusing it would be! How—

No. No, he couldn’t live that life anymore. Not now that everything was irreversible.

So he had stayed away. He had played little games in the flowerbed with random passers-by – innocent games that gave him scant amusement while he sat camouflaged in a bed of golden flowers almost identical to him. Games like making rustling noises in the bushes, meowing like a cat so that nearby pedestrians tried to lure out the ‘kitty’. Talking to an old blind lady who nobody would believe anyway. Knocking over sodas while their owners weren’t looking. That kind of thing.

But as hard as he tried he couldn’t stay away from Frisk and the others. Soon enough he’d be back, peering at them from a distance, hearing their laughter float to him on the wind. But Flowey had miscalculated his visibility as they sat at the park, having a picnic, and the human child looked up at just the wrong time. Even though he dove beneath the surface he was sure that they had seen him. They knew he had followed them to the surface.

Frisk had tried to lure him out. They would wander alone about the city or through the gardens, eyes glancing this way and that. Flowey was sure they wanted to talk to him. They even left him a note on the slopes of Mt. Ebott. He hadn’t read it. He had left it alone and when the next day came, Frisk had found the bedraggled paper in the same place they had left it. Flowey thought that had been the end of it, that maybe the kid would chalk down their appearance to be a trick of the eye on a summer afternoon. But, yet again, he had underestimated the kid’s determination. The trap was obvious, of course, but in his defense he hadn’t expected Frisk to use their friend as bait.

“SO,” Papyrus bellowed, clapping his mittened hands together as he squatted in the snow in an attempt to become eye-level with the flower, “NOW THAT WE HAVE COME TO AN AGREEMENT…”

“We did no such thing,” Flowey interjected. Papyrus talked right over him.

“…HOW ARE YOU DOING, MY GOOD FRIEND? I HOPE I DID NOT WAKE YOU FROM SWEET DREAMS!!!”

Flowey couldn’t dream. It was one of the perks of being a flower. “Nah, I was just dozing.”

“OH GOOD! AND WHERE, MIGHT I ASK, IS YOUR SCARF?”

“Oh, that.” Flowey glanced back at the hedge. “I’ll get it. Be right back.”

Flowey disappeared into the depths of the pricklebush and unwound a red ribbon from around a particularly long thorn. He considered just staying in there, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Papyrus would attempt to come in after him if he stalled. Now THAT would be an interesting sight to see. But then again, he would have to find another pricklebush afterward, guaranteed. So a second later he was back, tossing the ribbon down at Papyrus’s red-booted feet.

“HERE WE GO!!” Papyrus picked up the ribbon and tied it in a bow on the flower’s stem. “NOT TO TIGHT, IS IT??”

“Not too loose, not to tight.” Flowey shook a little bit to see if the bow would dislodge, but the skeleton had done his work well. “Just right. Thanks, pal.”

“NOW WE MATCH! YOU ALMOST LOOK JUST AS DASHING AS THE GREAT PAPYRUS!!!” Papyrus tossed his own scarf over his shoulder and let it billow in the wind like a cape, laughing. Flowey allowed himself to grin at his companion’s antics. Papyrus had always been one of Flowey’s favorite toys back when he had powers. Even after the rest of them became uninteresting, the tall skeleton was still amusing. Now, after everyone was free, Flowey took the most care to avoid the Skeleton house. Papyrus might be entertaining company, but the risk of his brother noticing was too high.

But then Papyrus had begun to take morning jogs. Knowing how lazy Sans was, Flowey had no worries about following from a distance. There was no chance that the trashbag would be up this early. Then, in a cluster of trees by the side of the road, Papyrus sat down and began to talk loudly.

“FRISK TOLD ME THAT YOU WERE HERE, FLOWERY!” he declared to a – presumably – empty wood. “I AM SO GLAD THAT YOU DECIDED TO FOLLOW US, MY FRIEND!!! IF YOU ARE LISTENING, WHICH I ASSUME YOU ARE, I WANTED TO TELL YOU EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE WE LEFT THE MOUNTAIN! YOU MAY BE A BIT FOGGY ON SOME OF THE DETAILS, SO LET ME FILL YOU IN…”

Flowey had stuck around just to see how long Papyrus would talk to nothing. A long time, apparently. After about half an hour of babbling, the tall skeleton stood up again, brushing himself off. “I HOPE YOU ARE HERE SOMEWHERE!” Papyrus called into his surroundings. “IF YOU WERE NOT, I UNDERSTAND YOU ARE VERY BUSY WITH FLOWER THINGS. HOWEVER… IF YOU WISH TO JOIN ME, I WILL BE HERE THIS TIME TOMORROW!!! AND THE DAY AFTER!!! SO DON’T HESITATE TO COME!” and with his trademark laugh of “NYEH HEH HEH!!!” Papyrus had resumed his jog.

True to his promise, Papyrus had returned the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. He continued to talk to an empty grove of trees, chatting in a one-sided fashion about anything and everything that came to mind.

Eventually, after scouring the surrounding area in case of an ambush, Flowey had given into the bait and made an appearance. Hearing the fellow carry on a train of conversation by himself was too stupid and leaving for him to actually talk to nothing was pitiful, so as long as he still held the upper hand, he might as well give him this.

Papyrus had been delighted to see him and his rapid banter had increased tenfold upon his subject’s appearance. Flowey – although he never would have admitted it out loud – was secretly relieved to have someone to talk to again. Communication had been missing from his life recently and having a friendly face nearby was strangely placating. Although he made it very, VERY clear to Papyrus that he did NOT want to have ANYTHING to do with the others. Not with Frisk, not with his brother… NOBODY. And if he ever did catch a glimpse of someone else, down he would go and Papyrus would never see him again.

You had to be straightforward with Papyrus. The guy rarely caught subtleties.

They had met often in the woods by Papyrus’s jogging path, and then Flowey had let on that he lived in the garden, so if Papyrus ever wanted to find him, that was where he should look.

Flowey regretted giving out this information now.

“So, what do you want?” he asked brusquely. That was another good thing about Papyrus. You could treat him like a skeletal punching bag and he’d apologize for being too bony. Flowey never felt like he had to act around him. He still would, of course, but he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to.

Papyrus didn’t catch the hint that he was unwanted at this early hour, because his eyesockets began to shine with a joyful luster. “DON’T TELL ME YOU’VE FORGOTTEN WHAT TODAY IS???”

Flowey didn’t even try to think about it. He struck up a sarcastically cheery tone. “Gee, I don’t know, Papyrus. What day is today?”

“I’LL GIVE YOU A HINT…” Papyrus leaned forward, propping one hand on the ground to keep his balance in such a low position. “IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE…” His enthusiasm getting the better of him and he threw both hands in the air, ending, “CHRISTMAS!!!!!!” with a bellow that made Flowey wince.

“Oh yeah. That’s today, huh?” Flowey looked down at the ground, tracing a squiggle in the snow with the tip of a leaf.

“AND!!! I, AS YOUR FREQUENT AND VERY BEST OF COMPANIONS, DESIRED TO BE THE FIRST TO WISH YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!”

“Well, golly, Papyrus, that’s very sweet of you!” Flowey resumed his cheerful mask. “And a merry Christmas to you, too.”

It was amusing how Papyrus’s face lit up when given only the barest hint of reciprocation. “WHY, THANK YOU, FLOWERY!!! HOW VERY KIND OF YOU!! IN THE NAME OF CHRISTMAS AND THE SPIRIT OF GIVING, I HAVE ALSO COME BEARING GIFTS!!”

“Oh… you _really_ didn’t need to do that, Papyrus.” Flowey felt uneasy all of a sudden.

“I KNOW!! THAT’S WHAT MAKES ME SUCH A COOL FRIEND!!!” Flowey still wasn’t sure how skeletons worked, or how it was that their permanent smiles could shift, but Papyrus beamed a little brighter. “MY FIRST GIFT IS THIS: I’VE BROUGHT MY PRESENCE AS A PRESENT!”

“Gee, I’m so lucky.” If sarcasm was a liquid, Papyrus would be drowning.

“AND FOR THE SECOND ONE… DO YOU REMEMBER A FEW MONTHS BACK WHEN WE WERE DISCUSSING WHAT WE WANTED FOR CHRISTMAS??”

“You mean back in September? Yeah… I remember.”

“WELL, WAIT RIGHT THERE A MOMENT…” The uneasy feeling grew as Papyrus leaped away, disappearing behind a shrubbery arrangement. He reappeared in a second, wheeling beside him a glorious red bike with a golden basket.

_He remembered_ , Flowey thought, a weird sensation growing where his soul should be. Due to his soulless nature he couldn’t feel most emotions. Fear and irritation, sure. But joy, happiness, and the ability to care about others, as well as most other emotions people took for granted had been sapped away. Again he felt that hollowness that struck whenever somebody did something nice for him. Something that he didn’t deserve from somebody who knew he could never pay back in kind. Even though he didn’t remember all of Frisk’s Resets in full – only a few details had clung to mind – he remembered the feeling of warped confusion when they refused to kill him. After everything he had done, still they refused. The simple act of Sparing had confused him horribly, but then again, Frisk ended up Sparing everybody in the end, so maybe he wasn’t all that different. But kindness of this magnitude…? Papyrus was something different.

The skeleton posed beside the bicycle, eagerly searching for Flowey’s response. Flowey pasted on a smile to hide his true thoughts. “Golly, Papyrus! Look at that thing! So shiny and beautiful and everything I ever hoped it would be! Now all I have to do is climb into the seat, push the pedals, turn the handlebars, and I’m on my way! Wait…” his smile turned cynical. “I don’t have hands. Or feet. And I’m too small to see over the handlebars.” He shrugged. “Oh well. I’m sure everyone would have loved to see a bike-riding flower, but I guess it just can’t happen.”

“AH, YES! NOW WE COME TO PHASE TWO OF MY PRESENT GIVING!!!” Papyrus declared, flipping down the kickstand on the bicycle and coming back over to Flowey. “YOU SEE, BOTH MY GIFTS TO YOU TODAY ARE TO BE USED IN TANDEM!!! FOR ALTHOUGH YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE HANDS OR FEET TO PEDAL AND STEER, I HAVE BOTH OF THOSE THINGS!!! FLOWERY!!! I’LL HELP YOU WEILD YOUR PRESENT SO YOU CAN HAVE THE CHRISTMAS YOU DESERVE! WHENEVER YOU ARE READY, DETACH FROM THE GROUND AND I WILL GIVE YOU A RIDE.”

“You’ll…” Flowey stammered. “WHAT?”

“I’LL GIVE YOU A RIDE!” Papyrus repeated. “AT FIRST I WASN’T SURE HOW TO MANAGE THIS THING… BUT AFTER PRACTICING A FEW TIMES ALONG THE STREET AND SOME ASSISTANCE FROM MY BROTHER, I HAVE LEARNED HOW TO SMOOTHLY OPERATE THIS VEHICLE TO ITS FULLEST EXTENT!!! I KNOW HOW YOU DO NOT LIKE TO BE SEEN BY THE OTHERS, SO TO AVOID THIS I ARRIVED EARLY SO WE COULD ENJOY CHRISTMAS MORNING UNINTERRUPTED!”

There it was. That hollowness again that some sort of good feeling might have filled. Flowey looked from the enthusiastic skeleton to the bike once more. It was a very pretty bicycle. The meshed golden basket on the handlebars looked almost comfortable. Without anything else to say, Flowey tentatively agreed, “…Okay…”

Papyrus scooped up the flower, roots and all, and set him in the basket. Flowey twined his vines through the mesh to keep himself stable, looking hesitantly back at his driver. “You sure you know how to drive this thing?”

“DO NOT DOUBT MY ABILITIES, DEAR FLOWERY!!!” Papyrus stated, seating himself behind the flower and firmly grasping the handlebars. “I HAVE HAD SEVERAL DAYS WORTH OF TRAINING FROM BOTH SANS AND THE HUMAN, AND HAD I WISHED IT, UNDYNE AS WELL! ALTHOUGH… I WANTED THE BICYCLE TO BE IN PROPER CONDITION TO GIFT TO YOU, SO I DECLINED UNDYNE’S MORE… VIGOROUS TRAINING.”

Flowey snorted. “Yeah, can’t blame you there.”

“WHOOPSIE DOOPSIE! I ALMOST FORGOT!” Papyrus pulled out a tiny red plastic helmet – probably gleaned from a doll’s set – and set it on the flower’s crown. “SAFETY IS IMPORTANT, YOU KNOW! AND ONE FOR ME!!!” He pulled out an even bigger helmet, this one a light blue with rainbows painted on it, and clicked it under his chin, settling it over his earmuffs.

“Of course. Because it isn’t safety if you don’t look ridiculous,” Flowey commented.

“PISH-TUSH, FLOWERY! I THINK WE’RE THE MOST DASHING CYCLISTS THAT EVER WENT BIKING ON A CHRISTMAS MORNING!!! WE’RE PROPERLY SECURED, WE HAVE PLENTY OF TIME, AND IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY OUTSIDE! WE’RE OFF!” With a lurch, Papyrus kicked off the ground, sending the bicycle forward. Bringing his feet up, he began to pedal, becoming progressively less wobbly as he picked up speed. They exited the garden and picked up speed on the concrete sidewalks. The cold wind hit Flowey in the face and he blinked to keep snowflakes out of his eyes. He wondered if Papyrus felt the cold at all. Probably not, based on the skeleton’s fashion choice for the day. Flowey would ask if he wasn’t afraid that Papyrus would burst into song about how the cold never bothered him anyway. It sounded like something Papyrus would do.

The streets were quiet. The bike they rode was well-oiled and the wheels made no sound as they turned. Sometimes, far away, Flowey could hear the drone of a distant car, but none came into view. All the houses along the main road were silent and dark. It almost seemed like the two of them had fallen into another world – one painted in white and gray where the only splash of color was to be found in the yellow of a streetlamp or the sparkle of Christmas lights on a house. But then they exited the city and the last house faded into the distance and everything became black and gray once more.

“The mountain…?” asked Flowey, breaking the silence as he realized where Papyrus was taking him. “We’re going back underground?”

“YES MOUNTAIN, NO UNDERGROUND,” said Papyrus. He wasn’t even breathing hard, Flowey noted with some interest. “THE OTHER DIRECTION, MY DEAR FLOWERY! FOR ON THIS CHRISTMAS MORNING, WE WILL ASCEND!!!”

No sooner had he spoken then the skeleton gave the handlebars a sharp turn and began to take the bike up a dirt path that almost instantly became steep. Flowey clenched his roots a little tighter as the basket tipped and Papyrus stood up on the pedals to give himself more power. Soon, the winding road leading from the city was like a dark ribbon and the city was like a child’s playset – small and insignificant, fading in a white mist. The lights below seemed like the Christmas lights they had seen draped on the roofs, tiny and twinkling. So far below.

They continued to climb and Flowey made his grip even tighter on the basket as he realized just how far upwards they had gone. The rugged path became thin, a sheer cliff off to their left plus the slippery, snow-slick road spelling impending doom in Flowey’s mind. He peeked back at his driver, who – despite his exemplary constitution – was starting to breathe heavily.

Wait, breathe? Nevermind. A question for another day.

“Are you sure about this, Papyrus?” Flowey posed, trying not to act like he was becoming uncertain. “We’ve come up pretty high.”

“NOT HIGH ENOUGH YET!!!” puffed Papyrus, trying for a grin although sweat was beading on his face. “WE NEED TO REACH THE SUMMIT! ONLY THEN MAY WE CALL OUR JOURNEY COMPLETED!”

“Yeah, but…” Flowey chanced a peek over the cliff’s edge and immediately wished he hadn’t. There were rocks down there. Big, sharp rocks, and they were a long way down. How had the kid not cracked their head open when they fell into the Underground? Just looking at this drop was starting to give him vertigo. “Shouldn’t we be prioritizing safety? I mean… it wouldn’t be a very nice Christmas gift to your brother if he found out you threw yourself down the mountainside.”

_Not to mention I’d be dead too_ , he added to himself, which was his true main concern. Normally, he wouldn’t have to worry about this. If the idiot ran them off the side of the mountain he could’ve just reloaded. But now? Now he had mortality to worry about.

“NONSENSE!!!” Papyrus bellowed. The shout echoed out over the expanse below. “I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I’M DOING!!! SEE? EVEN NOW THE GROUND IS LEVELING OUT A LITTLE AND I CAN CATCH MY BREATH.”

“I don’t think you thought out this part,” Flowey pointed a leaf directly in front of them, where the pathway abruptly ended. “End of the road, pal.”

Papyrus didn’t halt. Flowey chuckled nervously. “What… what are you doing? This is the part where you’re supposed to stop pedaling.”

“ON THE CONTRARY,” Papyrus said, standing up on the pedals again and gritting his teeth, “I BELIEVE THIS IS THE PART WHERE I GO AS FAST AS I POSSIBLY CAN!!!”

“WHAT!?!” Flowey demanded, giving the road – and lack thereof – another glance to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Maybe a sharp turn, or…? But no. Nope, there was nothing but death that way, and they were now heading there with break-neck speed. “You idiot, there’s no road there! We’re going to fall straight off the side of the mountain, what do you think you’re doing???”

“HAVE SOME FAITH IN THE GREAT PAPYRUS!!” cheered the clearly delusional skeleton. “I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!!! NYEH HEH HEH HEH!!!” He threw back his head in a laugh.

Flowey’s whole tiny body became overcome by fear. He was going to die here. He knew it. Both him and the crazy skeleton. He had always kind of assumed it would be Sans who would do the final act of killing him off. The smaller skeleton would find him out, rip him out of the ground, and bash him open with rows upon rows of bones and blast him to smithereens with those weird dragon skull blaster things like he had back in that previous timeline when he had made a point of being as downright dirty as he possibly could to as many people as he possibly could. Or maybe impaled by Undyne – that was a plausible death as well! Or incinerated by one of Alphys’s machines gone haywire. Even getting accidentally sat upon by Greater Dog was a more reasonable end then this! But no. He HAD to get the stupid ending where Sans’s deranged brother drove them off a mountainside on a bicycle of all things on Christmas morning.

He knew that somehow he’d get blamed for it. When their dust was discovered, Sans would scoop him up and find some way to revive him – again! – just so that he could kill him again for luring his brother off to his death. Just kicking his remains around the mountainside wouldn’t be ample enough punishment for something he didn’t even do in the first place.

Even as these speculations raced through Flowey’s mind, the edge of the cliff got closer. The flower shrank into the basket, hardly daring to look as his death flew to meet him. Behind him, Papyrus took both hands off the handlebars, holding his arms out like a tightrope walker T-posing over an adoring audience.

This was the last straw. All of Flowey’s fear manifested and he grew his vines long and strong, coiling around the front tire of the bicycle and twisting it savagely to the side. Papyrus gave a yelp as he tumbled in an undignified heap to the earth, but Flowey wasn’t so lucky. He summersaulted in the air, eyes dazed, the only thought registering that instant being the simple fact that he had been flung too far. The threshold of the ledge had been passed. He was falling over the cliff’s edge.

There was no time to think. No time to concoct a mental last will and testament. Not even enough time to call a curse on all animate skeletons. Just enough time to realize that this was it. This was the end. He couldn’t Reset this time. His mouth opened and he let out a single incoherent scream – a plea for help, even though he knew deep down what time had taught him long ago that echoing answer that was heard by the dead or dying:

But nobody ca--

“Oof!”

Flowey landed on something hard. Not sharp, not deadly, and certainly not as far down as he had calculated. Stem shaking, Flowey raised his head from the surface and found it to be a bone. A sleek, white, magical bone, hovering in thin air, far thicker and sturdier than the dirt road. He looked up. Papyrus, mud splattered and lying prostrate with one hand reaching over the cliff, gasped heavily. “OH MY GOD!!! FLOWERY, ARE YOU ALRIGHT??”

“I…” Flowey couldn’t even figure out how to respond to that question. Somebody came. This time, somebody came. He could only weakly respond again, “…I…”

Papyrus, with a wave of his mittened palm, ushered the bone up to his position, gathering the frazzled flower off of its surface and allowing it to dissipate. An inclining staircase of magic bones, the same as the one that had just disappeared, stacked themselves up in a well-knit formation toward the mountain’s summit. “DIDN’T I TELL YOU I KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING?” Papyrus reminded him. Flowey, still trembling, still lost for words, started up at them.

“I SEE I FAILED TO COMMUNICATE MY INTENT,” Papyrus said. After a thorough examination, he put the flower down on the ground and knelt beside him. “I WAS OVERWHELMED WITH THE DRAMA OF THE SITUATION AND DID NOT STOP TO CONSIDER HOW RIDING FULL-SPEED NO-HANDS AT A CLIFF LEDGE MIGHT APPEAR TO YOU. PLEASE ACCEPT MY HEARTFELT APOLOGIES.”

“Ha… Ha…” Flowey began to giggle. It started out softly at first, and then rang out as a full-blown maniacal laugh that was swept up in the snowy wind and carried across the town below. Papyrus gazed at him with some concern. “Boy… hee hee…” Flowey wiped his watering eye with the tip of a leaf. “After all this time, you still continue to amaze me. I used to think you were just a regular idiot, but you’re _so much more **stupid** than I thought_.” His voice deepened as he said this, features warping and melting.

“FLOWERY, YOU MUSTN’T SAY SUCH CRUEL THINGS ABOUT YOURSELF!” Papyrus tutted, standing up and fetching the bike. He brushed it off, checking for scratches, paying no heed to Flowey’s rather frightening appearance. “THERE! NO DAMAGE DONE! THE BIKE IS UNHARMED, YOU ARE ALRIGHT, I AM AS COOL AS EVER, SO I BELIEVE WE MAY CONTINUE OUR JOURNEY!” He snagged Flowey unresisting from the earth and placed him back in the basket, walking the bike over to the bone staircase. “ALTHOUGH, I THINK WE MIGHT JUST TAKE A LIFT INSTEAD OF THE STAIRS I HAD PLANNED. AFTER ALL, I DID LOSE THE MOMENTUM I PLANNED TO HAVE TO GET US BOTH UP. SO A LIFT WILL JUST HAVE TO DO FOR THE FINAL INCLINE.”

With another wave of his hand, Papyrus’s bones merged into a single bone platform which, at his command, began to rise gently upward toward the mountain’s peak.

_How do I play this out?_ Flowey wondered, his face slowly returning back to its usual, less frightening proportions. Stay angry? Guilt tactic? Shrug it off? The options were endless.

He had just decided to give Papyrus the silent treatment until it made him squirm, but then the skeleton spoke up and shattered his resolve completely. “THERE IS SOMETHING THAT HAS BEEN PUZZLING ME…” he said. “WHEN YOU FLEW OFF THE LEDGE MY FIRST PLAN WAS TO RESCUE YOU WITH BLUE MAGIC. I WOULD CATCH YOU BY YOUR SOUL AND PULL YOU BACK TO SAFETY. BUT… WHEN I ATTEMPTED THIS ACT, MY MAGIC DID NOT WORK! SO I HAD TO USE THE BONE INSTEAD. FLOWERY…” Flowey kept his petals low, shielding his face from the skeleton’s probing look. “MY MAGIC HAS NEVER GONE AWRY BEFORE! BEING WEILDED BY ME, IT IS MADE THE COOLEST OF ALL MAGIC, AND SINCE I AM INFALLIBLE IT CANNOT BE ME OR MY MAGIC THAT IS THE ISSUE. THE ONLY REASON I COULD NOT GRAB YOUR SOUL… WOULD BE IF THERE WERE NO SOUL TO GRAB.”

Flowey hoped he wouldn’t make the connection. That he would come up with one of his stupid Papyrus work-arounds to explain why his magic didn’t catch. But it turned out that he did make the connection and the flower cringed as he realized that he didn’t have an alibi for why the blue magic didn’t hold.

“FLOWERY, CAN IT… CAN IT POSSIBLY BE TRUE? YOU ARE SOULLESS?”

Flowey turned to Papyrus snappishly, letting the dead, hollow feeling in his center manifest in his eyes. “Gee, Papyrus,” he said in a flat, emotionless tone. “How’d you guess?”

He felt the faintest flit of surprise when he saw the skeleton’s hollow eyesockets well with tears. “OH MY GOD…” Papyrus whispered. He pressed his mittened hands to his mouth. “DOES IT… DOES IT HURT?”

“No!” Flowey turned away again. “Of course it doesn’t hurt!”

“OH… OH, GOOD. CAN I… ASK HOW IT HA—”

“No,” Flowey snapped.

“OH… OF COURSE. YOU DON’T HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO, FLOWERY. I UNDERSTAND.”

“Understand?” Flowey gave a hollow chuckle, pointedly curling his petals inward a little to avoid Papyrus’s prying eyes. “Nobody understands. Definitely not you.”

“BUT I DO!” He could hear the skeleton shift above him and see his boots turn in his direction. “WHY, THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING! THIS EXPLAINS WHY YOU’RE ALWAYS SO TERSE AND ANGRY ALL THE TIME! WHY YOU’RE SOMETIMES NOT… IN THE MOST CHARITABLE MOOD…”

Flowey rolled his eyes from behind his shield. “Oh, so you noticed that, huh? Golly, and here I was thinking that your smiley trashbag of a brother was the one with all the brains.”

“FLOWERY, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A SOUL, THAT IS NO EXCUSE FOR NAME CALLING.” The lift had reached the summit and Papyrus, with a disappointed frown in the flower’s direction, began to wheel the bike back onto solid ground.

Flowey was surprised. “Really?” he demanded. “I can call you a delusional idiot of a loser and all you say is ‘DON’T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF, FLOWERY’…” Here Flowey’s face warped into a semblance of his skeletal companion’s and his voice took on a Papyrus-like quality, “…But as soon as I call your brother a trashbag you peg me for name calling. Besides, you’ve called him worse things. Your logic’s kind of escaping me. Help me out here, pal!”

Papyrus flipped up the bike’s kickstand and sat on the ground beside it. They were at the summit of Mount Ebott, the clouds a whirling fountain of gray and white beneath them. Patches where the clouds had been blown away shone dark, like snow that had melted off blacktop, and only the barest glimmer through that darkness hinted that a town lay below and not an endless void of nothing.

“WELL…” Papyrus started consideringly, scooping up a handful of snow and packing it into a perfectly sculpted snow dodecahedron, “MY BROTHER ONCE TOLD ME THAT WHEN PEOPLE SAID MEAN THINGS TO YOU, THEY WERE ALWAYS SAD OR MAD ABOUT SOMETHING GOING WRONG IN THEIR OWN LIVES. SO ACTUALLY WHAT THEY WERE REALLY DOING WAS SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT THEMSELVES!” Here he grinned triumphantly, but his smile faded with the next solemn sentence. “HOWEVER… I AM VERY MUCH AWARE THAT NOT ALL PEOPLE SHARE MY TRULY MAGNIFICENT STAMINA. THEY MAY NOT SEE THAT THE INSULTS ARE MERELY DOUBLE-SIDED WEAPONS AGAINST THEIR ASSAILANTS, OR THEY MAY NOT BE AROUND TO HEAR THE WORDS AGAINST THEM. THEREIN, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, STEP IN AGAIN!! I WILL BE THEIR SHIELD AGAINST THESE BARBAROUS WORDS BY DEFENDING THEM WHEN THEY HAVE NO ABILITY TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. FOR IF I DO NOT DO IT FOR THEM, THEN WHO WILL!? NYEH HEH HEH HEH!!!”

Flowey thought this over. He wanted so badly to argue, but the beaming skeleton’s hard-put logic was sound. Well, maybe not sound, but it would take too long an argument to shake it. It certainly explained a few things about Papyrus’s sturdy self-confidence. Flowey ended up saying nothing at all, head dipped, frowning at the ground.

Finally Papyrus stirred, gesturing with his mittened hand. His eyes were locked on the horizon. “FLOWERY… LOOK, MY FRIEND! THE SUN IS RISING!!!”

Flowey had seen the sunrise several times since exiting the underground. It had quickly lost its splendor. It was bright, it was colorful. What of it? But he had never seen it from this high up before. And never with a friend.

The sea of darkness beneath them became a sea of gray as the sun made its appearance, lifting like an opening eye with blinding glory. As it gained height, Papyrus kept up a running commentary of all the colors which made an appearance. Pinks, yellows, and purples made a dazzling swath against the canvas of the sky, slowly resolving itself into a steady blue. The frigid air became just a touch warmer as the sun’s beams stretched tentatively into the winter air.

Papyrus anxiously tapped the ground, raising himself into a standing position. “ANY MOMENT NOW… ANY MOMENT…”

Flowey wondered what he was waiting for. His friend’s empty eyesockets gleamed in anticipation and the flower found himself waiting for some triumphant encore.

Papyrus whooped as the final curvature of the sun separated from the horizon. “THE SUN IS LOOSED FROM THE SHACKLES OF EARTH!!!” he cried. “NOW IT TRULY IS CHRISTMAS MORNING!”

He took a step forward, cupping his hands around his mouth, and bellowed at the land below. “HELLO TO ALL HUMANS AND MONSTERS, AND A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! FOR I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, STAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD!!! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!!!”

Papyrus’s laugh echoed into the cold air. Flowey wondered if a nudge would send him falling off the edge, but it didn’t manifest more than a fleeting fancy. His thoughts were much more preoccupied a second later when Papyrus whipped around, snatched Flowey out of the ground, and held him triumphantly over his head. “HOW DOES IT FEEL, FLOWERY, TO BE THE HIGHEST IN CREATION AT THIS MOMENT!?!”

Flowey thought about giving a snippy answer. He thought about staying silent. But after contemplating those and many more options, he sighed and answered, “Honestly, Papyrus? It feels pretty darn great.”

“RIGHT YOU ARE!” cheered his companion, lowering him down so they were on equal level. He sucked in a deep breath through his nasal passages and gave a satisfied nod. “RIGHT THEN. BEST BE HEADING BACK! THE OTHERS WILL BE ROUSING SOON!”

He placed the flower back in the basket and Flowey coiled his roots securely through the mesh as Papyrus began to wheel him back to the bone lift. “I KNOW YOU PROBABLY DON’T WISH TO…” Papyrus started, looking at him sideways. “BUT… YOU ARE ALWAYS INVITED TO SPEND CHRISTMAS WITH US IF YOU WANT. WITH ME AND FRISK AND THE OTHERS.”

Flowey turned his face aside. “That’s a hard pass.”

“OH… VERY WELL THEN. I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I HAD AN EXCELLENT TIME THIS MORNING!” he continued, beaming brightly. “AND THE REST OF THE DAY SHOULD BE EVEN BETTER!!! WE MADE SO MANY PLANS FOR TODAY! WHY WE WERE PLANNING TO--”

Papyrus continued to chat all the way down the mountainside. Apparently it was easier to talk when riding downhill than struggling uphill. Flowey listened to him prattle about his plans, how he would open presents with his brother, then how they would all head over to Toriel’s house and exchange gifts there with all his friends. Flowey was fairly certain that Toriel had made new mittens for Papyrus, since he had seen her knitting them as he peeked in through a window, but he kept this tidbit to himself.

Flowey shrank into the basket as they entered the town. Some cars were driving carefully through the snow, but none of the drivers seemed to spot him. Reflecting on Papyrus’s fashion of the day, he uncurled himself a little, deciding that if anyone was going to fixate on anything, Papyrus’s helmet-earmuffs combo would raise more questions than a golden flower in a basket.

Soon enough they wheeled back into the garden and Papyrus slowed in front of the pricklebush. Flowey allowed himself to be picked up and placed back in the snow-filled flowerpatch.

“NOW, I SHOULD BE HEADING BACK,” Papyrus said decidedly. “SINCE YOU HAVE NO PLACE TO KEEP YOUR NEW BICYCLE, I WILL KEEP IT SAFE IN MY GARAGE. REST ASSURED IT WILL COME TO NO HARM THERE! AND SOMEDAY WE CAN MAKE PLANS TO REPLICATE THIS EXPERIENCE, OR BRING THE BICYCLE ON A WHOLE NEW ADVENTURE!!! WOULDN’T THAT BE SPLENDID!?”

“Yeah,” Flowey agreed, and found himself sincere. “That’d be great, Papyrus.”

The skeleton laughed and settled himself on the bike again. “SO IT’S DECIDED! UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN, FLOWERY! ENJOY YOUR CHRISTMAS! I KNOW I WILL! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!”

With a quick kick to get himself started and a final over-the-shoulder bellow, “MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!” Papyrus was gone.

Flowey sat there for a few seconds staring hard where the skeleton had disappeared before realizing that he had a hard weight resting on his petals. Oh right. The helmet.

He ducked under the ground, reappearing back in the center of his pricklebush, and unclipped the helmet with a thrust of his leaves, also untying the ribbon around his stem. He looked at the two articles with a tight frown before hanging them up carefully on a protruding thorn, careful not to scratch one or rip the other.

“Merry Christmas, you idiot,” he murmured to empty space.

**The**

**End**


End file.
